


Do You Believe In Miracles?

by andchaos



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demon Dean, Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:15:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 8,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1666061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>various drabble about cute, bumbling, harmless demon!dean to help get through the hiatus until s10 crushes my dreams</p><p>named, of course, after the s9 finale title, which I suppose was named after a song anyway, so who knows anymore</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

          After the fiasco that was the reunion, life at the bunker had returned to a startlingly normal pace.

          Sure, Sam looked at him a little sideways sometimes. Too wary. Too unsure.  As though Dean was going to up and kill someone in the middle of breakfast. Maybe he thought Dean was going to smoke out of his meatsuit and leave Sam’s big brother dead on the floor while he wreaked havoc somewhere else. Dean was too attached to this vessel to do anything of the sort—people trusted this face, people let him in—but Sam never voiced his fears, so Dean never said anything to reassure him.

          Meanwhile, Cas looked physically pained every time he saw him. He could barely stay in the same room with him.

          “He’s just pissed, Dean,” said Sam one evening, when Cas darted out of the room yet again as soon as Dean entered. “The almighty Righteous Man he saved is a black-eyed bitch now.”

          “Thanks, Sam,” said Dean sourly. “I think you’re swell too.”

          “You know what I mean, you sulfur-y freak,” said Sam, turning back to the movie he was watching. “Now sit down, you’re making me miss the best part.”

          It wasn’t quite so simple, though. He was filling the part of “normal” to placate his brother, because the sleepless nights and lack of food were visibly freaking him out. Dean would, therefore, go down to the kitchen sometimes to get a beer late at night, or at least offer glasses of whiskey to anyone in the vicinity, but one night he turned the corner into what he recognized as a Very Serious Conversation. So, although he knew logically it was immoral, his black little demon heart told him to sneak back behind the wall and eavesdrop. So he did.

          “Sam, are you sure about this?” Cas urged, low and solemn. “You know what he is now. He’s unstable. He’s dangerous.”

          “He’s my brother,” said Sam, just as fiercely. “Look, we’ll keep him in line. We’ll watch him.”

          “But Sam—”

          “What do you want, then?” said Sam, sounding on the verge of shouting. “Do you want to kill him? Is that what you’re suggesting? Is that what you’re gonna do? Are you going to drive Ruby’s knife straight through his chest?”

          Cas didn’t answer. From behind a wall, Dean couldn’t see his expression to determine if his silence was contrition, admission, or something else altogether.

          “That’s what I thought,” said Sam when the silence stretched on.

          Dean chose that moment to enter the kitchen. They both turned to look at him as he came in, crossed the room, and bent down to grab a beer from the fridge. He could feel them watching each other behind his back, wondering how much he’d heard. He made it all the way back across the kitchen before he nonchalantly threw over his shoulder,

          “I do know right from wrong, you know. And I’m still Dean.”

          He left.


	2. devil's trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dean accidentally gets caught in a devil's trap

          One of the first things Dean learned was that he no longer had free run of the bunker.

          Sam had gone out for his morning run and to grab some breakfast for them all (well, him and Cas really, because Dean had already given up going through the motions). That left Cas to watch over Dean to make sure he didn’t go full dark side, except for the part where Cas could barely stand to look at him anymore. As soon as Sam left, Cas tersely told Dean that he was going to go guard the front door to make sure he couldn’t leave the bunker. Then he left the room.

          Essentially left to his own devices, Dean resorted to checking out the rest of their home base. He briefly considered taking a trip all the way down to the garage to test out that motorcycle that Dorothy had left. He didn’t feel like taking the whole long walk across the bunker, which in all fairness was very large, so he instead went off in search of some kind of shortcut.

          He ducked in through a small door next to the gym that he had always taken to be a supply closet but that turned out to house a long, narrow hallway. The door at the end was thin and rusted at the hinges, but he managed to wrangle it open and step through—

          Only to get caught in the threshold. The door frame was very thin, but upon looking up, he noticed a very small symbol carved into the top of it. He stretched up onto his toes to read it better, and noticed that it was, as it happened, a devil’s trap. It was about the size of the one they had drawn on the bullet they’d put in Abbadon’s skull, and apparently equally effective.

          “Well, fuck,” said Dean, rocking back onto his heels.

          He peered into the room that was warded against him and noticed a lot of important-looking filing cabinets that he supposed the Men of Letters didn’t want some filthy thing like him getting into. He sighed.

          “Cas!” he called over his shoulder.

          No answer resounded back to him.

          “Cas!” he tried again, louder.

          He lounged against the side of the door frame and decided to just wait for the inevitable shitshow this would turn out to be.

          Sam found him around noon. He ran down the hallway, his long moose hair whipped across his sweaty face, sticking to the skin. He was panting and clutching his sides.

          “I looked everywhere for you!” he shouted, as though this was Dean’s fault.

          “There’s a devil’s trap,” said Dean matter-of-factly, smirking and pointing above his head.

          Sam gaped at him for a second, then rolled his eyes as though praying for patience. He strode forward, dug a penknife out of his pocket, reached up, and scratched out the symbol.

          “You gave Cas a heart attack,” Sam accused, stepping back to an appropriate distance and pointing the knife at him.

          “Angels can’t get heart attacks,” Dean said dismissively. “Even partial angels whose graces are slowly leaving them.”

          He entered the room and started to dig through the filing cabinets, mostly out of the spite. The Men of Letters had wanted so badly to keep this place private, Dean couldn’t wait to get his demonic mitts all over their precious papers.

          “You’re a dick,” Sam observed.

          “I’m a demon, Sam,” said Dean in the same uninterested tone.

          He turned his head around and flashed his eyes black for a second, then blinked them back to normal and smiled wide. Sam huffed and stomped back down the hall they’d come down.

          “That excuse isn’t going to work anymore!” he shouted.

          “You can’t control this much pure evil, Sam!” Dean called back.

          He went back to purposefully touching every square inch of the hidden room.


	3. Castiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dean and cas make up, kinda

          “Cas, we’re gonna have to talk about this eventually.”

          Dean had just spent two hours cooking dinner for his brother and the angel, and Cas still wouldn’t look at him. Sam went out a lot to do research and go on runs and flirt with pretty girls, and with Cas refusing to speak more than one sentence at a time to him, Dean was getting bored. So he’d actually _cooked dinner_ in an attempt to get in the angel’s good graces, but no. Cas could still barely look at him.

          “I’ll give you some time alone,” said Sam, scrambling up from the table. He grabbed his plate of noodles and fled into the other room.

          Dean took his vacated seat and glared across the table, which was still littered with textbooks and parchment because none of them had ever bothered to find a proper dining room, so they kept eating at the research tables.

          “Talk to me. What’s up with you?” said Dean, waving a hand in his general direction. “Why have you been avoiding me since I got back? I thought you’d be thrilled I was alive.”

          Cas glared at him. “You aren’t technically _alive_ , Dean.”

          “Well, I’m walking and talking, so I’m going with the word ‘alive’ until you come up with something better. Now, what’s with you? Is it because I’m ugly now?”

          “What?” asked Cas sharply, actually holding eye contact this time.

          “Yeah, you know…you won’t look at me now that I’ve got demon face.” He arched an eyebrow as a new thought struck him. “Or maybe you’re into it,” he said, smiling wickedly. “You were all over Meg, right? What, have you got some sick sort of demon thing and now you want me? Oh, god.”

          Cas shoved his chair back and stood up. “That’s not funny, Dean,” he hissed. His hands were planted flat on the table and he was leaning across toward him, wearing his best Intimidating Angel face.

          “It’s a little funny,” said Dean, grinning.

          “Not even a little,” said Cas. He followed Sam out of the room.

          Dean spent the next two weeks following Castiel around, making the lights flicker every time he tried to do something important. He learned how to mess with the electricity, too.

          “Would you stop that?” Cas snapped one day. “I’ve been trying to cook this burrito for an hour.”

          “Start hanging out with me again and I’ll relinquish the microwave,” said Dean, crossing his arms.

          “Fine,” said Cas, rolling his eyes. “Sam said there was a movie marathon on Scy-Fy later. You can come watch it with us.”

          “Stonehenge Apocalypse?” said Dean, perking up. “That movie’s the best. Actually, it’s terrible. Actually, it’s so bad that it’s good.”

          “Is speaking gibberish a demon thing?” asked Cas, tilting his head.

          “Shut up and eat your burrito, you lily-white cherub.”

          Later that night, they all sat down and watched Stonehenge trigger the collapse of the world. Dean laughed at all the wrong parts, but at least he let Cas microwave the popcorn in peace, so they were all pretty happy.


	4. hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> team free will goes on a hunt

          Dean was in the bathroom pretending to pee to avoid the woman crying on the couch, because if he’d been bad at providing emotional support before, he was downright awful now.

          Sam and Cas had _finally_ agreed that Dean could come on a hunt with them—a regulation demonic possession that was more of a test for Dean than an actual job—but so far he hadn’t even been able to get past initial interviews. He glared at himself in the mirror, eyes flashing black and back several times. He watched the transition, trying to get his mind off of how uncomfortable the sight of tears had made him. Finally, he took a deep breath and ventured back out into the sitting room.

          “Are we, uh, done here?” asked Dean as soon as he entered the room, clapping his hands together and looking around expectantly.

          Sam glared at him; Cas made a face that might have implied that he was an idiot, since the widow was _still crying_ right in front of him; the woman turned her teary face to him and said,

          “I’m sorry, Agent, you must be so busy. Do you have any last questions for me?”

          “No, I think we’re good,” said Sam, watching Dean the whole time.

          They made it all the way to the front door before the woman wailed, “I just don’t understand how this could have happened! Frank was a good man!”

          And before anyone could stop him, Dean opened his mouth.

          “Ma’am, have you ever considered that your husband intentionally joined up with the clique from Hell to get away from this crippling suburban _nightmare_ you call a lifestyle?”

          Predictably, the woman started gasping and sobbing anew, Sam rushed to offer words of comfort and begged her to not to call the police inquiring about the legitimacy of their statuses at the station, and Cas grabbed Dean’s arm and dragged him outside.

          “Sam says you have to behave or you can no longer accompany us on hunts,” said Cas while they were waiting for Sam to reappear. “Now, will you stop intentionally upsetting the witnesses?”

          Dean kicked at the ground, frowning. “Will I have to stay in the bunker? Cos that’s boring as shit, man.”

          Cas narrowed his eyes, his grip on Dean tightening. “Yes. You will.”

          Dean promised not to mess up their hunt any more. Eventually Sam came back and they all piled in to the Impala. Dean was relegated to the backseat, which was the only part of the car that they’d scrubbed clean of any and all demon proofing, and they drove off to the crime scene.

          Inside the abandoned warehouse where the victim had last been, Cas went ahead to check for obvious signs of struggle while Sam stayed behind to help Dean find clues. Mostly, he was watching Dean to make sure he wasn’t acting unruly in any manner.

          “Would you quit stalking me and try to find some evidence, too?” snapped Dean.

          Sam went to work, but he kept shooting Dean glances out of the corner of his eye, which Dean found disproportionately annoying, all things considered. When Sam called his name some five minutes later, Dean flipped his eyes black and growled, “What!” because honestly, he hadn’t even been doing anything.

          “Put those away,” said Sam. When Dean obliged with a hard stare, Sam continued: “Come here, you devil-worshipping jerk.”

          Dean went over to him, not once dropping his guard. Sam rolled his eyes and gestured him closer, then pointed at the windowsill he had been examining. Dean hunkered down onto his haunches and peered through the dark to try to find what Sam was trying to show him, but he came up blank.

          “Does this smell like sulfur to you?” asked Sam, pointing again.

          Dean shifted forward and sniffed all around the area. When he was done, he put on a bored and distasteful expression that he often saw Sam wearing.

          “What's with the bitchface?” asked Sam indignantly. “Don’t you smell sulfur? Did you find any?”

          “Sam,” said Dean, drawing out the word to wholly unnecessary lengths. “That’s me.”

          He was thereafter sent to go wait in the car.


	5. salt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> family dinnertime!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspiration from: http://dalekitsune.tumblr.com/post/86455315240

          “I’m hungry,” said Cas.

          Now that he was slowly losing his grace, Cas’s human emotions and needs were expanding, and he was extremely petulant every time he expressed them. He was flopped down on the couch and glaring up at Dean, whose feet were kicked up on the coffee table while he watched Sam play video games with Garth. They’d carefully planned around the lunar cycles and invited Garth down to the bunker, and although he had initially flipped out about Dean’s condition, he’d become extremely understanding in the end. To be fair, he was a werewolf, and lived with a lycanthropic family of the bitten _and_ born variety, so he had some experience with monsters trying to be good. He wasn’t willing to hold this against Dean for long—after Dean promised that he would try not to go full-on evil, of course.

          “I’ll cook you up something!” said Garth, jumping to his feet. Sam cursed and threw the abandoned controller at Cas, inviting him to take Garth’s place in the game.

          “Come on, Cas, we’re losing ground!” he said, just as he blew someone up onscreen.

          Garth started making cheeseburgers for Sam and Cas. Dean had already told him about his heavily reduced appetite—he _could_ eat, he just chose not to on most occasions—and Garth himself had gone off hunting deer and rabbits yesterday afternoon, so it was just the pair of them, human and almost-human, craving grease.

          Sam glanced over at Dean in between rounds of killing.

          “When’s the last time you ate?” he asked, face pulled together in obvious anxiety.

          Dean sighed at his brother’s continuous fretting. He _knew_ Dean didn’t need sustenance, but he still got worried over how he’d function without the calories to turn to energy. Not that demons always abided by the laws of physics. Or biology.

          “Fry me up something too!” called Dean, choosing not to answer his brother directly.

          “You got it, boss!” Garth yelled back.

          Twenty minutes later, they all sat down for dinner. Garth had made himself an extremely raw burger after Dean decided to have something too, so they could all dine as a patchwork family. Cas immediately dove in, smearing his cheeks and hands with cheese and meat. Sam was a little more refined, but the obscene amount of ketchup that he’d drizzled on his dinner kept dripping past his wrists. Garth was all over his food, too, heavily enjoying his barely-cooked meal. Dean cleared his throat, shimmied his sleeves partially up his arms, and bit into his burger.

          He immediately dropped his dinner and screamed as pain bloomed through his body, fire racing down his throat, to his heart, and out all the way to all of his extremities. He ran to the sink and lapped up water like a dog, hoping to dilute the inferno in his veins. Finally, the agony quieted down, and he stormed back to the table a few minutes later.

          “I told you,” said Dean, huffing angrily and red in the face, “No salt in my food!”

          “I’m so sorry,” said Garth, sounding close to tears. Sam was falling over himself laughing, and Cas was too lost in his dinner to even really look up. “I forgot! I forgot!”

          “Garth, I’m going to fill you to the brim with silver!” shouted Dean.

          Eventually Sam got sick of them shouting—Dean in anger, Garth in apology—and fished a salt shaker out of one of the drawers in the kitchen. He flicked some on Dean every time he opened his mouth. Sam, Cas, and Garth all spent the rest of the evening making Dean do them favors, at threat of the salt shaker.


	6. appearances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dean's even prettier than usual, apparently

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspiration from: http://dalekitsune.tumblr.com/post/86552011955

          Dean had seen a lot of demons in his time, so he knew how they looked on the outside. At the very least, he knew how they looked to humans: pretty much the same as every other man and woman on the planet, except they often made poor decisions and sometimes their eyes glazed over completely black.

          He was sprawled out on the carpet in the library archives, while Sam and Cas did research for a new case they were working on (it was another demon possession, more high level than the last, and Dean was _not_ allowed to come this time). He was on his back playing with a ball he’d found in the park the other day, ignoring Sam’s frequent comparisons of him to a dog.

          “Hey, Dean,” said Sam out of nowhere.

          “For the last time, Sammy, I’m just tossing it around! I am _not_ a Labrador—”

          “No, no, that’s not what I meant,” said Sam, laughing a little now. “I was just wondering if you planned on helping at all any time soon.”

          Dean glanced up at him, brow furrowed. “I’m a demon, Sam. I can’t be seen mingling with the riff-raff on do-gooder cases like this.”

          Sam rolled his eyes. He tipped his chair back onto its back legs, glaring down at his brother where he was lying in the middle of the room, comfortable on the plush red carpet. After a few minutes of determined silence on Dean’s end, Sam returned to his books, muttering about his useless, wicked excuse for a brother.

          “Cas!” Dean whined after another stretch of research-filled silence. When Castiel turned toward him with an eyebrow raised, Dean continued, “Come hang out with me, I’m bored.”

          He refused at first, but ten minutes of straight complaining was enough to break him down, and he eventually lay down on the carpet next to Dean.

          “What is it?” he asked, folding his hands on his stomach and staring at the ceiling.

          “Did you know I can see your true face now?” said Dean conversationally, still alternating the tennis ball between his hands. “It’s all…light, and purity, and good. Weird choices in animals, though. All in all, makes me want to puke.”

          “Did you know _I_ can see _your_ true face?” Cas returned. “That dark, swirling mass of blood and shadows is extremely becoming on you. Much better than your previous visage.”

          “Fuck off!” shouted Dean, shoving Cas onto his side.

          At Sam’s behest, Cas called him the Pretty Prince of Darkness for three days straight.


	7. black eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dean can't always control when his eyes flash black

It started in the morning.

          Dean woke up one Thursday to the sound of Sam singing loudly while he cooked breakfast. He grumbled to himself, flung his sheets back, and stumbled out of bed and to the mirror.

          “I am _not_ going to kill my brother today,” he said seriously to his reflection. “I am not going to kill my brother. I am not going to kill my—”

          He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them with one hand, and while one of them blinked open, the other stayed shut, crusted with sleep. When it finally opened, he staggered back: It was black.

          “Fuck!” he said, digging at it with the heel of his hand. He blinked and it turned back green.

          Someone knocked on his door, and before he could answer, whoever it was pushed it open.

          “Is everything okay?” said Cas.

          “Yeah, m’fine,” grunted Dean. “Just got something stuck in my eye.”

          Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there. His eyes kept flashing without his permission all day—when Sam turned to ask him a question, so that he stumbled into the counter and then onto his ass; when Cas passed him his breakfast, and then promptly dropped the plate so that it shattered all over the floor. In truth, he found it all rather amusing, possibly because it kept causing his friends and family minor injuries.

          They went out to a case around noon, mostly because Sam wanted an excuse not to have to look at Dean’s uncontrollable color-changing eyes any more. They all dressed up in their suits and went out to a regular ghost attack case. They were all three adept at traditional salt and burns, and normally would have found something a little harder so that less able hunters could get this one, but it was the closest case they could find to the bunker and Cas had said that he was starting to feel a little under the weather, so they wanted to keep him close to home.

          They all settled into the living room while their interviewee went to fetch lemonade and sodas, Dean squished between the others; Sam insisted that he needed the room for his giant moose limbs, and Cas claimed the other side so that he could be near the tissue box on the end table. The woman returned after a few minutes. Dean spent her absence giving disgruntled nudges to the men on either side of him, carefully elbowing and kneeing his brother and best friend in the legs and stomachs and arms, just enough that they were aware of his displeasure.

          “Try to act your age,” Sam muttered as the woman sat down in the chair facing them.

          “Try to act your age,” said Dean in a horrible mockery of his brother’s voice. Sam rolled his eyes and then cleared his throat, all business as he faced the woman again.

          They laid into her with their questions then, Sam doing most of the talking because Cas whispered to Dean that speech scratched his throat in a most unpleasant fashion.

          Dean didn’t mean to do it, honestly—one minute he was talking, the next some dust or an eyelash or _something_ flew into his eye, and he started blinking rapidly. And then the woman screamed.

          Dean looked up at her, startled, as she darted across the room. Sam went to comfort and shield her and probably to convince her that she was insane, and Dean turned to Cas.

          “What the fuck?”

          “Your eyes are black, Dean,” Cas whispered. He grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet, then called to Sam, “We’re going!” and led him back out to the car.

          Sam exited the house fifteen minutes later, apparently having managed to calm the woman down and assure her that she hadn’t seen what she thought she had. He then berated Dean for another twenty minutes about learning how to keep himself in check, and if he wanted to be a _live_ demon then he’d better be a _controlled_ demon.

          Dean pouted and slouched down in the front seat. He felt a little better when they stopped at a mall on the way home, and he and Cas spent thirty minutes trying on different pairs of sunglasses to shield their funky, color-changing irises.


	8. holy water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dean gardens and gets wet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by one of the bullets on http://dalekitsune.tumblr.com/post/86665954215

          Dean was extremely careful in his everyday life, because he knew his brother too well to trust him not to pull minor pranks.

          They’d struck a deal in the beginning: Dean promised not to fling him against walls if Sam swore not to exorcise (they still weren’t sure what would happen if they attempted that, as Dean was decidedly not a regular demon) or otherwise use his demonic state against him. Of course, neither of them was completely trustworthy. Dean still maintained that he was _allowed_ to break the deal because he was a son of Satan or whatever, but Sam refused to take that as a legitimate excuse for his “douche behavior” and always got him back in some manner.

          Dean was particularly careful this morning because he had sent Sam reeling against the ceiling three days ago for stealing his leftovers. Three days, and no reciprocation whatsoever. Dean was constantly on edge, only eating foods he had handpicked himself and sticking to unopened beer. He nudged everything before he touched it in case Sam had somehow imbued it with iron, and stayed far away from conversations that didn’t sound like English from several rooms away.

          Cas stuck his head into Dean’s room while he was getting dressed. He had officially gotten over his fever yesterday, but the last vestiges of it were evident in his sniffles and the dark circles beneath his eyes. Dean was still pitying him.

          “Do you want to come outside and help me garden?”

          Dean wanted to say no. Honestly, he didn’t understand Cas’s fascination with plants and flowers, but he wasn’t surprised; aside from bees, flora had been Cas’s number one priority back after he’d taken Sam’s crazy at the clinic, and he’d never gotten over it. After Cas had moved back into the bunker, they’d set up a makeshift garden at the back entrance, where he grew his own tomatoes and scallions and all sorts of admittedly gorgeous flowers.

          Dean wanted to say no, but Cas made another pathetic post-illness snuffling noise as he asked, so instead Dean shrugged off his flannel so that he was just in his jeans and a dark t-shirt and said, “Sure.”

          Gardening was hard work and Dean hated it. After an hour on his hands and knees, he started shouting, “I’m a knight of hell, not a farmboy!” every ten or so minutes. By the end of it, he was a mess, and covered in dirt. Sam called them both in for dinner around six.        

          “I’m grabbing a shower,” Dean grunted, shouldering harshly past his brother and into the bunker.

          “But I made—”

          “Showering!” Dean shouted as he stormed down the hall.

          He stripped and hopped into the shower. He was overheated and sunburned and aching for the cold spray, so he turned it on straight over his head without waiting for the hot water to turn on.

          Instead of sighing as the water pounded out the aches in his back, Dean shrieked and jumped back, slamming into the glass door. The water set his skin aflame as it hit him all over his body, and he scrambled to get the door open. Even when he was on the tiles, his skin ached where the water clung to it, and he scrubbed viciously at his body with a towel, seeking all the places on fire.

          “Sam, you son of a bitch!” he screamed.

          Sam’s laugh exploded outside the door, and when he was certain that every place but his hair was dry, he wrapped a towel around his waist and pulled open the door to reveal his hysterical brother.

          “Fuck you!” shouted Dean, shoving him backwards into the wall. “What the fuck did you do?”

          “He rigged the taps with holy water,” supplied Cas, slipping around the corner into view.

          “How did you—what did you—how—”

          Sam was laughing, Dean was spluttering, and he spent the rest of the night in his bed, glaring at the ceiling, blaring Led Zeppelin, and contemplating how best to set Sam’s bed on fire while he was sleeping in it.


	9. hellhound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the bunker gets a new pet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a comment in this story and these posts:  
> http://lustiel.co.vu/post/86380073521  
> http://dalekitsune.tumblr.com/post/86665954215

It started out by accident.

          They’d all been out on a case, hunting a stray werewolf who had nested in a pack of actual wolves and had become something of a den mother _and_ pack leader. She’d also been fourth gen after the original, so, like that werewolf girl Kate that they had set free a few years back, she could turn at will. She’d learned how to shift even while calm and spent most of her days as wolf now, tearing out hearts and bringing them back to the cave for her family to consume.

          They didn’t slaughter the animals, just the woman. Afterwards the wolves all jumped on Dean while Sam and Cas were out loading up the car, and he had to fight them off and make his way back to the Impala, covered in fur and the scent of wild dog.

          He hadn’t had time to shower or change before his brother and best friend sent him back out to fetch dinner. And of course his car still had demon proofing everywhere but the back seat, so he’d had to walk.

          He was along main street when another demon showed up and tried to slit his throat while screaming “TURNCOAT” loud enough to get the whole street staring. Dean got him into the cover of trees before slaughtering him. He supposed other dark warriors of Satan weren’t into his Demon of Good gig. Which explained a lot about Meg, actually.

          He’d just gotten back on the road when something bumped into his leg. He looked down and jumped, pulling out Ruby’s knife and brandishing it at the dark mist—but he recognized its form, actually. The shadows were all melding itself into the shape of a dog, and he suddenly understood what Cas saw when he looked at Dean’s true face.

          The hellhound backed warily away from his weapon, but it didn’t look unfriendly. Dean hesitated, then carefully sheathed the knife. The pup perked up, wagging its little demon tail and letting its tongue loll out. It came over to sniff at his clothes, which were still dusted in the wolves’ scent. Dean crouched and stretched out a hand, and the dog jumped up to lick at his face.

          Even when he got up and told the dog to stay, it followed him all the way to the store. Dean glanced at the _No Pets_ sign before leading the hellhound inside; after all, no one could see it except for him.

          He didn’t really like pets in general, but this one was good. It followed his every command (except for “leave me the fuck alone, you adorable demon spawn”) and trotted happily by his leg, occasionally bumping its nose into his hand until he petted along its back. He didn’t bark or attack anyone, so Dean let him follow him to the register and then all the way home.

          Cas was in his room when he got back to the bunker, but Sam was at the research tables. He was just setting down all the food for dinner when Dean walked in, his new pet invisible by his side.

          Much to Sam’s obvious suspicion, Dean helped clean up the books before they ate. He sat down while Sam went to fetch Cas.

          “He’s coming,” said Sam when he reentered the room. “He was just—what are you doing?”

          Dean looked up, his hand stilling where it had been scratching along the hellhound’s ears.

          “What?” he asked innocently.

          “What—what are you doing?” Sam repeated.

          Cas came in and stopped dead in the doorway. “Why?” he asked simply, retreating to a safe distance.

          “Dean, is that—is that a hellhound?” asked Sam, backing up until he hit a bookcase.

          Dean shrugged. “You always wanted a dog, Sammy.”

          Sam gaped at him. Possibly he was astounded by the sheer depth of his brother’s stupidity.

          “I named him Sparky,” said Dean, as though that helped anything.


	10. Sam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nice, wholesome fraternal wars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> allusions to dean masturbating, but there's nothing explicit--it's about the same as what they do on the show
> 
> Inspiration from this post: http://dalekitsune.tumblr.com/post/86665954215

          Sam had taken to wearing those special glasses they had rigged to view hellhounds, almost never leaving his room without them. Despite Dean’s insistence that Sparky was completely under his control, Sam evidently didn’t trust him not to rip his leg off while he made coffee.

          Maybe because Dean was a demonic, soulless bastard now, or maybe because he just didn’t like Dean’s new dog, but Sam had upped the ante on pranks and payback recently. Dean stormed into the kitchen one morning after waking up with new headwear and threw the pair of fabric horns at his brother, who looked around when they hit him and then grinned when he noticed Dean.

          “Oh, good morning,” he said lightly.

          “That’s _not funny_ ,” Dean grated out, crossing his arms.

          “Good likeness, though.”

          Still grumbling, Dean turned around and stomped off back down the hall. Only when he got to the bathroom did he notice that his brother had somehow also managed to pin a red devil tail to the seat of his sweatpants.

          That afternoon, the door to his room flew open, slamming audibly into the door jamb. Dean looked up just in time to dodge the laptop that Sam threw at him, which bounced along his bed and came to a rest by the edge of the mattress.

          “Did you use my computer for porn again?” shouted Sam. “I thought we were past that!”

          “I had to get revenge, Sammy,” said Dean, stretching out more on his bed and settling his hands behind his head. “I had to get revenge three times.”

          “That’s—that’s disgusting,” said Sam. He looked away and took a few seconds to collect himself. “You have to take that to get the virus wiped. And we’re still working that case with the banshees, so do it _soon_.”

          Dean took a few days to get the computer fixed, but he ended up doing it himself—he’d worked enough cases with Frank back in the Leviathan days that he knew how to do a standard tech job. Of course, Sam chose to threaten him with an exorcism over something stupid the same morning that Dean gave back his laptop, so that afternoon he went to go steal it back from his room while Sam was out running. He was just crawling onto his little brother’s bed to get the computer by his pillow when he noticed that a corner of the rug was pulled back, and revealing some suspicious symbols. He jumped down to the floor and tugged the carpet back more.

          “Son of a bitch!” he shouted, flicking the rug back into place so that the devil’s trap surrounding Sam’s bed was covered up again.

          Cas had to come rescue him, and when Sam heard about the incident later, he laughed so hard he nearly smashed his head into the corner of a bookcase. The following morning, Dean revealed that he’d been taking the sulfur he left around the house and sprinkling it into Sam’s cornflakes. In the end, they called a truce.


	11. holy water: part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> holy water makes a return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by like eight different tumblr posts idk everyone seems into it

          Aside from thinking he was the funniest of Team Free Will, Dean was also convinced that he came up with the best excuses. Sam and Cas seemed to feel that he was the biggest asshole. They bickered a lot about semantics. Mostly they quarreled over Dean’s newest bad habits.

          “Dean, have you been putting sulfur in my shampoo again?”

          “Did you write _Game of Throne_ spoilers on the bathroom mirror? Dude.”

          “Dean, did you _pee_ in the house plants?”

          “Dean—”

          “I’m a demon, okay?” Dean shouted every time. “I can’t help it!”

          One day they went to eat dinner that Dean had made (under Castiel’s moderate supervision, in case he trifled with it somehow). Cas furrowed his brow when he bit into the meat, frowning at his food, and Sam outright gagged and spit it out into his napkin.

          “Can you get me salt or something?” said Sam. “Jesus, this is the toughest meat I’ve ever had!”

          “I’ve got it,” said Cas, pushing his chair back and disappearing into the kitchen. A few minutes later, he poked his head around the corner. “I can’t find any salt anywhere. Just the bags under the sink in case we get attacked.”

          “Oh, yeah, salt?” said Dean, barely looking up and hardly intelligible around a mouthful so big it puffed out his cheeks. “I got rid of it.”

          “What?” shouted Sam, rounding on him. “All of it?”

          “It’s dangerous for a demon to have salt all around!” Dean complained. “And _I_ went grocery shopping, so _I_ pick what’s in the kitchen!”

          Instead of their usual berating, the other two just looked at him, then at each other. Cas raised an eyebrow; Sam nodded. Dean glanced between them as Cas went back into the kitchen.

          “What are you—hey!” he shouted, as Cas spritzed a Windex bottle at him. “Ow! What the fuck? That burns!”

          “It’s holy water,” said Sam matter-of-factly, grabbing the bottle from Cas and spraying more of it at his brother, getting his stomach when he lifted his shirt to wipe off his face.

          “Sam—hey! Sammy, stop it!”

          “Play nice,” said Sam simply.

          From then on, Sam carried a little bottle of holy water with him wherever he went.


	12. summoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dean gets summoned a few times and finds that he always has to clean the dishes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by this post: http://samspurity.tumblr.com/post/86369757620
> 
> Because yes, yes you can.

          After the spray bottle invention, Dean spent three days sulking in his room. Sam came by occasionally to beg him to come out, but his speeches were always punctuated by insuppressible laughter and Dean, for one, was not even remotely convinced. Cas also dropped in twice a day to ask if he wanted food, but Dean didn’t need to eat and as he wasn’t going to dine with either of them anyway, he didn’t feel the need to go through the motions, either.

          On the fourth morning, Dean peered out of his room into the empty hallway beyond. He crept into the kitchen, encountering no one until he turned the corner and saw Cas, barefoot and wearing a Ramones tee that he evidently stole from Dean at some point, flipping something in a pan.

          “What’s that?” asked Dean, checking over both shoulders to make sure Sam wasn’t creeping up to ambush him.

          “Oh, good morning, Dean,” said Cas, smiling over at him. “Would you like some bacon?”

          “Yeah,” said Dean, still looking all around.

          “Sam’s still asleep,” said Cas, sliding some bacon onto a plate and dropping it onto the table in between Dean and where he then sat down across from him, “So you can quit worrying so much.”

          “Yeah…yeah, cool,” said Dean distractedly, running a hand through his hair.

          They chatted while they ate breakfast, Dean relaxing marginally throughout. Sam came home just as they were finishing up, and Dean slid his feet off the chair he had kicked them up onto in case he had to make a quick escape.

          “Calm down, I just picked up some salt since _someone_ threw out all of ours,” said Sam, plonking his grocery bag down on the table and glaring at his brother. “Good to see you out of your room, though,” he added.

          Cas stood and started to clean up their plate. “Dean, can you put all that away?” he said, nodding to the mess he’d left on the counter. How he’d managed to destroy the kitchen making _bacon_ was anyone’s guess.

          “No way. You cooked, you can do it,” said Dean, leaning back and crossing his arms.

          Sam immediately reached into his back pocket and whipped out a spray bottle, spritzing his brother with it.

          “Be good!” he shouted.

          “Fuck off!” Dean yelled back, shielding his face with his arms. “Holy hell, I’m out of here!”

          He made it about halfway to town, on foot, when he felt a rumbling deep within his bones. He paused, glancing around, and then blinked—and suddenly he was looking back up into the shadowy face of his brother.

          “What the fuck?” he said, swaying a little on his feet, disoriented by the sudden shift in surroundings. He glanced over to Cas, who was sitting on the counter, swinging his legs, eating bacon, and who was right next to a big black bowl that looked like it was filled with some startlingly familiar herbs, an ounce of whiskey, and a few personal belongings Dean thought might have been stolen from his room.

          “Did you _summon me_?” he roared.

          Sam glared at him levelly. “Do the dishes.”

          “Are you serious?”

          “You have to pull your weight, Dean!” shouted Sam, but he was already out the door again.

          He made it maybe one hundred yards this time before he was rocketed back to the bunker. The next time he stormed out, it was only about fifty feet. This went on and on until finally he gave up. He shoved the bowl to the floor on his way past, shattering it, but he did eventually clean the kitchen.

          “Thank you, Dean,” said Cas sincerely, while Sam rolled his eyes in the corner.

          “Shut up,” said Dean. “You’re lucky I’m a good demon.”

          He wasn’t feeling quite so good two hours later, when he stumbled into another secret room and found a second bowl, filled with the same ingredients as the first, smack in the middle of a devil’s trap at least four feet in every direction.

          “Are you fucking kidding me?” shouted Dean, hoping someone could hear him. “Did you set up a _station_ for summoning me?”

          He found himself on permanent dish duty from that moment forward.


	13. the crown prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dean takes advantage of his new title, and is a dork

          The first time Dean came downstairs with a crown perched on his head, he expected his brother to say something. He was not disappointed.

          “Dean,” said Sam slowly, looking up at him where he was sitting at the table, nursing coffee with enough sugar in it to legally stop calling it coffee, “what…the hell…are you doing?”

          “What?” asked Dean innocently, starting to go through the fridge until he found some cold pizza shoved in the back. He ate it without preamble, not even bothering to reheat it. Breakfast of champions, indeed.

          “Why are you wearing that?” his brother asked. He was pouring even more sugar into his cup, oh _god_.

          “Isn’t that technically just coffee-flavored sugar at this point?” Dean countered, scrunching up his nose.

          Sam ignored him and went back to his breakfast; Dean did the same at the other end of the table. They sat in silence until Cas came in, and his eyes immediately snapped to Dean’s new headwear.

          “I was wondering why that appeared on the shopping list,” he said absently, digging in the pantry until he found the pancake mix. He set to work on the food, automatically adding a couple of more servings with the knowledge that Dean would definitely steal some of his pancakes once he’d made them.

          “But _why_?” Sam pressed.

          “I’m the crown prince of Hell now, Sammy,” said Dean, rolling his eyes. He got up and dumped the crust of his pizza in the trash. “I’ve gotta look the part!”

          “As long as you don’t start acting like it,” said Cas, his back to them both as he busied himself over the stove.

          Sam shook his head to himself and dumped more sugar in his coffee. “Stop staring at me like I’m the weird one here,” he snapped, catching his brother’s eye.

          “Whatever,” said Dean, shaking off his brother’s eccentricity. “I’m going to teach my royal pet how to play fetch.” He walked out of the room calling, “Sparky, come!”

          Sam stared after him for a few seconds.

          “I am _not_ being his royal subject,” he said. Cas snorted.


	14. preview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I saw the s10 preview and lost my goddamn mind.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

          Dean’s shout echoed through the bunker, bouncing from wall to wall as it traveled down the halls and into every room. Heavy footsteps followed the call, along with a distinct sound, like snapping wood.

          “I hate this game!” yelled Sam from another room.

          Dean smirked. The call was exactly what he needed; his eyes snapped to black and he yanked his axe out of the wall, proceeding further down the corridor. He passed a few more doors until he reached one that he knew led to a storage room. He paused.

          “Come on, Sammy!” he shouted. “I’m still your brother!”

          “Fuck you!” came the reply.

          Dean’s smile grew as he continued forward, smacking the blunt end of the axe against the walls as he went. For a little dramatic effect, he thrust the weapon upwards, shattering a light. The glass fell prettily around him. He thought it made him look extra badass. He stepped over the last of the shards and turned a corner, only to be met by his brother. Sam knocked the axe out of his hand and slammed him back against the wall, a knife against his throat. His hand was shaking.

          “Come on,” Dean growled again. “Do it!”

          Sam snarled and drew his arm back, ready to draw the knife across Dean’s throat.

          Dean closed his eyes.

          “Both of you!” someone snapped, and Dean blinked his eyes open. They were green again, and focused on the trenchcoat-clad man glaring at them both. Sam, meanwhile, jumped at the voice, and accidentally jabbed with the knife. It hit Dean’s shoulder, where the rubber tip bent sideways and snapped off.

          “Damn it, Cas!” said Dean. “I was going to get out of this one!”

          “This game of yours is ridiculous,” said Cas, scowling. He kicked at the fallen axe, and it careened into the wall where it, too, bounced off. “Dean prays too loud. I keep assuming you are coming at him with real weapons.”

          “You’re _praying_?” Sam said incredulously, turning to Dean with his arms crossed. “That’s cheating!”

          “Hunter's hide and seek has no rules!” said Dean, sticking out his tongue.

          Cas rolled his eyes. He huffed loudly and said, “The two of you are children.”


	15. beekeeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dean does his own thing. cas approves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw this and couldn't resist: http://deancasheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/92828605416

One day Dean disappeared.

          At first, neither Sam nor Cas thought anything of it. He was probably just out grocery shopping, they told themselves in the morning. He must have stumbled upon a case, they assured each other in the afternoon.

          “Maybe he’s out jogging?” suggested Cas weakly, which was when Sam knew that they were pretty much through lying to themselves. If there was one thing Dean Winchester did not do, not even as a black-eyed hell bitch, it was exercise.

          Sam muttered his retort: “Yeah, or maybe he’s on a murderous rampage.”

          Dean didn’t come back the next day, either. By day three of his absence, his brother and best friend had started to seriously worry; Cas suggested twice that they go looking for him, but Sam waved him down, insisting that Dean would return home when he was good and ready. After a week, though, even his resolve started to weaken. After a hasty lunch of peanut butter and banana sandwiches (Cas had to side with Dean on the fact that Sam was very strange for enjoying the combination), they left the bunker and started to walk.

          “Why did he have to take the car?” Cas asked over an hour later.

          “Do me a favor, Cas? Don’t talk to me until we crest this hill.”

          Twenty minutes later they spotted the Impala parked on a dusty dirt road. The car itself was coated in grime, which Cas found odd and Sam found suspicious, but when they crossed the threshold of the nearby farmhouse (guns raised, kicking down the screen door for what Cas could only imagine was dramatic effect), they found Dean in the little kitchen, feet propped on a small circular table, licking away at what appeared to be a spoonful of honey.

          “Hello, boys,” said Dean, grinning at them.

Sam dropped his gun. “What the hell is going on?”

          Dean spread his arms and tipped back in his chair, gesturing grandly at the entire property. “I bought the place!”

          “But _why_?” said Sam, glancing at Cas, who was only vaguely tuned in to the conversation. He had wandered over to the windowsill to look at the flowers on the ledge.

          “I’m a beekeeper now!” he said excitedly. “Like Cain!”

          “Must be a First Blade thing,” said Cas thoughtfully, touching a daisy petal, at the same time that Sam pulled a face and said, “Beekeeping, Dean? Really?”

          “What? I like bees,” said Dean. Cas hummed his assent from over by the window. “Besides, Sparky loves the open fields.”

          “Dean—” Sam started warningly, prepared to tell him to sell the place back, but Cas interrupted him.

          “Can I see the bees?” he asked, turning to Dean with his eyes alight with the prospect.

          He looked about ready to pee himself from overjoy, so Dean agreed, hopping to his feet and gesturing to Cas so that he followed him out the back door. Sam sighed, stowing his gun, and followed his brothers out. Best to tag along and get the full tour; once Cas saw the bees, he knew, his whole argument would be lost.


	16. the never-ending story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I MEANT TO POST THIS BEFORE THE PREMIERE. But I forgot. Also, I definitely read this suggestion somewhere, but I don't remember where. Apologies.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, I'm not entirely sure this even makes sense? I did it REALLY quickly to make sure it was at least on the same day as the premiere, even if I kind of missed the deadline by a few hours....Anyway, I'll probably go back and rewrite this into something that makes a modicum of sense. Eventually. For now, it is what it is.

Honestly, after _months_ of this nonsense, Sam was starting to get _bored_.

          “Bored?” Cas echoed, when Sam relayed his feelings to the fallen angel one morning, while Dean was out playing fetch with Sparky, and it was just the two of them eating lunch, side-by-side at the kitchen counter.

          “Yeah,” said Sam, shrugging.

          Cas’s eyes narrowed, but not like he was angry—he just seemed _confused_. His nose crinkled a little, like he didn’t entirely believe Sam, either, although he couldn’t imagine what Cas thought he might be keeping from him. After nearly thirty seconds of silence, Sam shrugged minutely, a little uncomfortable with Cas’s intense, unrelenting gaze. He turned back to his food, deliberately avoiding eye contact.

           “Well, what do you want to do about it?” Cas asked finally. “We’ve tried everything. There’s nothing left to do.”

          “I don’t know,” Sam sighed. “I just wish it would all…go away.”

          “Away?”

          Come to think of it, he was getting a little tired of Castiel just repeating everything he said, too.

          “Yeah,” he said. One of his large hands started refolding the pushed-up sleeve of his flannel overshirt, mostly for something to occupy himself. He glanced back up at Cas. “I mean, I know there’s nothing. But anything’s better than this. I just…just wish this was all some kind of crazy dream.”

          “Do you?” asked Cas, only his tone had shifted. He didn’t seem to just want Sam’s confirmation—he sounded like he wanted to know whether or not Sam really meant it.

          “Yes, really,” he said forcefully. “I know it’s not possible, but…what?” he added. Cas was looking at him very strangely indeed. A smile seemed to linger around his lips, and he cocked an eyebrow.

          “Isn’t it?” he said, and he didn’t sound very like himself at all—too arrogant, too playful, too much like Sam was _in_ for something he didn’t want to be a part of at all.

          Before Sam could react, however, Castiel raised one hand. And, in the split second between that gesture and him snapping his fingers together, he shifted—that is, his entire _face_ shifted, into something—into some _one_ that Sam almost didn’t recognize, because it had been years and years, and he was dead, wasn’t he—?

          Because if Sam was adjusted enough to his brother’s death to be bored…

          _It’s the heat of the moment…_

          And Sam, twenty-four and in a horribly familiar motel room, woke with a start.


End file.
